THE
Hongkong Weekly
AND
China Overland
Overland Trade
VOL. XLIV.]
CONTENTS.
Epitome of the Week, &.............................................
Leading Articles:
The Currency of China
Press
Trade Report.
HONGKONG, WEDNESDAY, 5т¤ AUGUST, 1896.
97
98
The Chamber of Commerce and Trade Statistica ..... 98
The Comminion on Insanitary Dwellings and
99
"The continued depreciation of silver" is the reason alleged by the Cable Companies for an important increase in rates which has been advertised. The rate between Shanghai and this has been doubled.
No
From an Auckland telegram in papers we learn that at Baratonga, on- afternoon of 17th June, between half- "past two o'clock and half-past four, the sea rose and over- flowed every five minutes, and then receded. The little harbours were nearly dry. It was on the 15th June that the great tidal wave oc-
A French-View of the Chinese Customs Service... 99/ Peking that a certain official has advised the curred at Japan. Possibly the phenomenon st
Aerial TramwaYS
Free Trade in Vios.....
Destructive Typhoon
The Low of the Iltis
Another Foreshore Difficulty
99
.100
100
102
.102
102
....102
Insanitary Dwellings Commission...... Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce Hongkong Sanitary Bosed...........
103 Mours, Leigh and Orange and the Sanitary Board.....104 The Governor's Despatch on the Blue Book ............104
Bellios Public School.......
A report has reached the Chih Nan Pao from Government to consult Sir Robert Hart as to the levy of a tax upon Manila lottery tickets sold in Chinese territory.
The directors of the Indo-China Fire In- surance Co., which has just been formed at Haiphong, are to be paid by results. Until the shareholders have been paid 8 per cent., which absorbs fr. 20,000, the directors get nothing. but as the net profits increase so the remunera tion advances, a net profit of fr. 30,000 giving them fr. 1,000, and a net profit of fr. 200,000 giving them fr. 35,000. The directors' fees are .107 | made the last charge on the funds.
105
.........106
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Hongkong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Co., Limited.107 Hongkong Golf Club
Japan Tidal Wave Relief Fund
Correspondence
French Designs on the Chinese Customs Service.... A Chinese National Bank and Another Loan.
The Strathesk Disabled ....
Hongkong and Port News.......................................................... Commercial
Shipping
BIRTHS.
107
107
108
110 112
The Nippon Yusen Kaisha advertise the 108 opening of a new foreign service to Seattle in .109 Oregon, the terminus of the Great Northern 109 Railway. The Miike Maru is to make the first voyage. She will start from Kobe on the 1st August and from Yokohama on the 5th, reach- ing her destination via Hawaij. Mr. Iwanaga, al director, and Mr. Masujima, a consulting lawyer, of the Company, are now in St. Paul, Minnesota, concluding a contract with Mr. Hill, President of the railway. The contract is expected to be signed and exchanged in a day or two.-Japan Muil.
On the 1st-inst, at Benfica, Robins n Road, the wife of H. EHER, of a son.
[1758 On the 2nd instant, at No. 51, Wyndham Street, the wife of CHARLES MOONEY, of a daughter. [1775 On the 3rd inst., No. 2, Hillside, the wife of Mr. ST. C. MICHAELSEN, of a daughter.
[1783
ARRIVALS OF MAILS.
፡
The American mail of the 2nd July arrived, per P. M. steamer Gaelic, on the 31st July (29 days); the Canadian mail of the 13th July arrived, per. C. P. steamer Empress of China, on the 4th August (22 days); and the French mail of the 3rd July arrived, per M. M. steamer Baghalien, on the 4th Angust (32 days),
--EPITOME OF THE WEEK.
The new German Minister-Resident and Con- sül-General at Bangkok, Baron Von Hartmann, arrived at his post on the 13th July.
Mr. Bibby, by permission of his directors, is to inspect the workings of the tin lode at Jelebu, and report on the same to the directors of the Jelebu Mining and Trading Company.
Commission has been appointed by the Governor of Hongkong to inquire into the existenos of insanitary properties in the colony and the means to be adopted to improve such
roperties and to abate overcrowding.
At a Committee meeting of the Yokohama Chamber of Commerce (Japanese), held on the 20th July, it was resolved to petition the Gor- ernment for the abolition of export duties on raw silk, tea, marine products, copper, and other miscellaneous wares.
The Japan Gazette of the 23rd July says Japan is a land of many misfortunes. Scarcely a month has passed since we were stirred with the tidings of à terrific sea-wave which hurled thirty thousand people to immediate death. Now from all parts of the country comes news of damages by floods, Railways are washed away, telegraph wires destroyed, and for the moment we are cut off from all communication with the outer world. The fertile plain of Gifu once again suffers fatality. Five years ago it was devastated by an earthquake that wrought frightful ruin. In 1892 it was submerged by floods and now it is also under water. It is time the Government began to recognize the danger of allowing river beds to silt up to a considerable height above the level of the surrounding country, for the gain to irrigation is more than counter balanced by the danger in the rainy season.
The report of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank for the half year ended 30th June shows that the net profits for that period, including $312,780, balance brought forward from last account, after paying all charges, deducting interest paid and due, and making provision for bad and doubtful accounts, amount to $1,470,795. The directors recommend the transfer of $250,000 from the profit and loss account to credit of reserve fund, which will then stand at $6,000,000. After making this transfer and deducting remuneration to directors there remains for appropriation $1,205,790, out of which the directors recommend a dividend of one pound and five shillings per share, which will absorb $444,444. The difference in ex change between 4/6, the rate at, which the dividend is declared, and 28. 24d, the rate of the day, amounts to $461,215. The balance $300,134 to be carried to new profit and loss account.
We are now informed that the new Chairman the Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company in succession to the late Sir John Pender is the Marquis of Tweeddale, and not Admiral Sir Leopold Heath as previously advised The tter
er gentleman probably be comes Chairma the Eastern and South African Telegraph Company dry
ednie kafal
Raratonga may have had some connection
with it.
On the night of the 29th July Hongkong and a severe typhoon. The Macao, were visited by damage to house property was widely spread, but fortunately not very serious except in few cases. Afloat the timely warning given enabled most vessels both native and foreign to seek places of safety, but a few junks were caught by the storm and wrecked and there was some loss of life. A foreign shipmaster, Captain Jay, of the schooner Wuchow-fu, was drowned while being hauled ashore by a ropa at Wanchai, where his vessel was in difficulty: the accident occurred by his losing hold of the rope. The storm was the most severe that has been experienced since the memorable typhoon of 1874, but with the system of storm warnings that now exists, allowing adéquate preparation to be made, accidents are confined within much narrower limits then was the case when typhoons burst on the colony unexpectedly. It is said, however, that had the storm of the 29th been of a little longer duration the native craft, even in their sheltered positions, would not have been able to withstand it, as they were nearly getting adrift or breaking up when the wind moderated.
The N. C. Daily News says:-The mandarins cannot in the future blame the merchants and
wealthy people of China if in the event of another scarcity of funds the latter refuse to lend any more money to the Imperial Govern- ment. During the late war with Japan, under the promise of the Board of Revenue to refund at stated intervals the "Merchants' Loan," the Government were able to raise something like eight and a half million taels. Once the money was in their grasp the provincial authorities retain this money, counselling the holders of have been trying all kinds of subterfuges to loan scrip to invest their money in cotton mills, etc., projected by the notables and gentry of the treaty ports, who of course, are merely retired mandarins and the tools of those in office. Fortunately for the future, good name of the Imperial Government a Censor has recently denounced this action of the provincial authori ties and asks the Emperor to keep his word and order the refunding of the loan as each instal- ment falls due, to which the Emperor will pro- bably give consent. It will be remembered we "published some time ago the substance of is petition by a large number of local merchants praying the acting Viceroy Chang to permit them to get back their money when it fell due,
the late war had crippled many of them and they wanted their money to prop up their business instead of investing in silk fillatures, cotton mills, etc."The Viceroy's reply w that the petitioners did not know what was good for them, and in other words he vetoed the peti tion, although he said that if the petitioners really wanted their money back he could not
" but then in cases, gainsay them, unwilling assent is often little more effica than a downright refusal
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